will change the fashion. The demand will
create the supply. When the leaders of fashion are inquiring for
American instead of French and English fabrics, they will be surprised
to find what nice American articles there are. The work of our own hands
will no more be forced to skulk into the market under French and English
names, and we shall see, what is really true, that an American gentleman
need not look beyond his own country for a wardrobe befitting him. I am
positive that we need not seek broadcloth or other woollen goods from
foreign lands,--that _better_ hats are made in America than in Europe,
and better boots and shoes; and I should be glad to send an American
gentleman to the World's Fair dressed from top to toe in American
manufactures, with an American watch in his pocket, and see if he would
suffer in comparison with the gentlemen of any other country."

"Then, as to house-furnishing," began my wife, "American carpets are
getting to be every way equal to the English."

"Yes," said I, "and what is more, the Brussels carpets of England are
woven on looms invented by an American, and bought of him. Our
countryman, Bigelow, went to England to study carpet-weaving in the
English looms,--supposing that all arts were generously open for the
instruction of learners. He was denied the opportunity of studying the
machinery and watching the processes by a short-sighted jealousy. He
immediately sat down with a yard of carpeting, and, patiently
unravelling it, thread by thread, combined and calculated till he
invented the machinery on which the best carpets of the Old and New
World are woven. No pains which such ingenuity and energy can render
effective are spared to make our fabrics equal those of the British
market, and we need only to be disabused of the old prejudice, and to
keep up with the movement of our own country, and find out our own
resources. The fact is, every year improves our fabrics. Our mechanics,
our manufacturers, are working with an energy, a zeal, and a skill that
carry things forward faster than anybody dreams of; and nobody can
predicate the character of American articles, in any department, now, by
their character even five years ago."

"Well, as to wall-papers," said Miss Featherstone, "there you must
confess the French are and must be unequalled."

"I do not confess any such thing," said I, hardily. "I grant you that in
that department of paper-hangings which exhibits floral decoration the